CrimsonPhantom
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RE: Mass protests break out in 5 cities in Cuba over the poor socialize medical system
‘They Need Our Support’: Gloria Estefan Pleads with Biden Administration to Condemn Cuba’s Communist Government
Quote:Gloria Estefan is calling directly on the U.S. to support Cuba’s pro-democracy protesters.
In recent days, the singer has signaled her support for those demonstrating against the communist Cuban government with social media posts. But over the weekend, Estefan took her pleas to traditional media, frankly asking world leaders, and specifically the U.S., to intervene.
On Friday, the Cuban-born lead singer of Miami Sound Machine posted an impassioned statement on Instagram asking the U.N. and the American government to come to the aid of the Cuban people.
“My heart hurts for the Cuban people on the island & what they’ve already gone through for over 62 years,” she said, adding “But now they are saying ENOUGH despite the beatings, the murders & incarcerations, the abuses of power, the starvation & the attempted destruction of their spirits! They need our support & that of the democratic & free countries of the world. The United Nations &, very especially, the United States, must strongly condemn the repressive & violent measures being taken by the Cuban government against their own people! Spread the images, spread the word!”
That same day, Estefan, who immigrated from Cuba when she was two years old, told Reuters, “I call on the United Nations to condemn the Cuban government and their tactics against their own people, that they’re using violence, that people are disappearing, that they’ve killed people.”
Then, in an interview with CBS’s Miami affiliate, WFOR-TV, on Monday morning, Estefan outlined the situation in Cuba, pointing out that, contra statements from Black Lives Matter and other left-wing political groups in the U.S., the Cuban people see nothing noble about their communist government.
“The young people of Cuba have had it now,” the 63-year-old said. “They don’t have any romantic ties to the revolution, or anything that may have happened 62 years ago. They’re hungry, they feel hopeless, they’re being jailed. They’re being tortured and it’s being hidden. People are dying in the streets and in the hospitals. It’s dire and things are not going to go backwards. If the government of Cuba thinks that this is gonna go away, they’re sadly mistaken.”
Estefan went on to argue that free artistic expression has led to the current uprising, saying, “It was started by directors, actors, musicians on the island as usual. Artists are the ones at the forefront of pushing the envelope with things. And even though they’ve been censored for years and weren’t allowed to press what they wanted to do because they will be jailed, they’ve had enough.”
The star added:
“There was an envoy ordered to look at human rights abuses in Cuba. They did not allow them in. They don’t allow the Red Cross and they don’t accept help whenever there’s been a hurricane that the United States and other countries have sent or wanted to send, they refuse to take it.
I would like to see a peaceful transition. I would love to see that government realize that their days are numbered because, just as the music industry was forever changed with the advent of the internet and social media, Cuba is down that same course.”
OPINION: Anti-Trump Evangelicals Are Now Silent On Biden’s Cuba Policy
Quote:In 2018, a host of Evangelical luminaries were busy building public profiles outside the usual churchy circles with frequent condemnation of the Trump administration. Foremost among them: Beth Moore.
A best-selling women’s Bible teacher with nearly a million Twitter followers, Moore became something of a media darling during the Trump years with extensive, sometimes front-page coverage in The Washington Post, USA Today, and The New York Times.
The Atlantic even dubbed her an “Evangelical Superstar” in a multi-page spread.
What Moore was most famous for in these secular press circles, however, wasn’t her commentary on the New Testament but her scathing criticism of the 45th President, especially his immigration policies.
The author was so committed to seeing Trump’s border plans reversed she put her name to a full-page ad in The Washington Post calling on the former President and Vice President to “help vulnerable immigrants.” “We are troubled,” she said along with her fellow signatories, “by the dramatic reduction in arrivals of refugees to the United States … Jesus makes it clear that our ‘neighbor’ includes the stranger and anyone fleeing persecution and violence, regardless of their faith or country.”
Given Moore’s public outcry over asylum seekers during the previous administration, you might assume she showed similar distress when Biden’s Department of Homeland Security secretary, Ali Mayorkas, said last week that Cubans trying to flee to the U.S. to escape persecution or torture are not welcome.
You would be wrong.
Moore, whose social media posts and activism regarding border security were widely covered between 2016 and 2020, has said nothing about the hunger, sickness, and general deprivation unfolding in the island nation. She has made no objection to Biden keeping the doors of our country tight shut to Cubans despite the fact that the government there is reportedly beating, arresting, and detaining Christian pastors. She hasn’t even mentioned Biden’s overall policy of keeping refugee admissions historically low, the point that so distressed her during the Trump years. Not one word.
It must be acknowledged, though, that Moore is hardly alone in her unwillingness to hold the new administration to the same standards it demanded of the last one. Before he resigned in May amid a flurry of fawning media profiles, former head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), Russell Moore (no relation) was known for his CNN interviews and New York Times op-eds in which he took his fellow Evangelicals to task for their Trump support. The former President’s border policies featured prominently in this criticism.
Under Russell Moore’s leadership, the ERLC issued an open letter asking Congress to provide a “legal remedy for the subset of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children by their parents.” At the height of the media storm surrounding Trump’s plans for building the wall, Moore tweeted, “Immigrants, & those fleeing from persecution, are not political ideas. They bear the image of a God …”
Yet now, as the totalitarian Cuban regime cuts off social media from its people and scores of protestors go missing only 90 miles from U.S. shores, as women cry in the streets about their children dying of hunger, how many op-eds has the prolific media commentator written about Biden’s lack of response? How many interviews has he given? How many tweets?
If you guessed “zero,” you would be correct.
The hypocrisy of the two Moores would be easy to dismiss if they were outliers. But the list of Evangelical authors and mega-pastors who have lectured rank-and-file parishioners that social justice issues are Gospel issues and lent their names to campaigns explicitly and implicitly condemning Trump immigration policies is a staggeringly long and elite one.
Quoting Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), mega-church pastor and recent president of the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., J.D. Greear, called Trump’s border policies “wicked” and said “Americans (should be) better than this.”
He appeared on PBS’s Firing Line, arguing that any believers who voted for Trump must speak about the “dignity of … immigrants and our responsibility to the refugee” lest they damage their Christian witness. Further, Greear contended that these remarks needed to be precise. “We can’t let political strategy cause us to pull back and not speak with clarity on the issues,” he said.
Yet where is Greear’s clarity today? Though he was happy to sign and promote Russell Moore’s ERLC statement, he too, has uttered not a single word about the crisis in Cuba or the Biden administration’s ghastly bungling of immigration in general.
Neither has Evangelical author, editor, and former ERLC staffer, Trillia Newbell.
During the national debate over the migrant caravans arriving in Mexico, Newbell, another CNN interviewee, offered statements for pro-immigration press releases and shared a New York Times article titled, “You Can’t Be Pro-Life and Against Immigrant Children.” The essay argued, “Because of their support of the president and general silence on his administration’s actions the major players in the pro-life movement are now tethered to his horrific border policies.”
“Yes,” Newbell tweeted in response. “What a tragic moment we are in. God have mercy.”
But what of the Cuban children suffering from a lack of food and medicine? Is their oppression less tragic? Is Heaven’s mercy less needed? Judging by Newbell’s silence when it comes to the Biden administration’s promise to turn back refugees of that nation, you’d have to assume so.
And the list goes on and on.
An earlier Washington Post ad, which ran in 2017 making similar immigration demands as the second, read like a who’s who of the Evangelical world. The signers included bestselling authors Max Lucado and Ann Voskamp, influential mega-church pastors Tim Keller and Matt Chandler, and seminary president Daniel Akin.
Once again, not one of them, though they claimed they were duty-bound by their Christian platforms to speak truth to Trump, has publicly commented on Biden’s response to Cuba or even offered general support for welcoming Cubans fleeing the threat of torture.
Republicans in Congress have offered direct resolutions to support the Cuban people as they protest brutal communist oppression. No Democrats have backed it. Neither have any of the above-mentioned religious leaders.
While it might be possible to believe that one or two of these leading Christian lights simply hasn’t yet had the time to address the issue, the fact that none of them has, despite their very active social media accounts, suggests something else is going on.
It’s important to note that the comments from these leaders during Trump’s tenure were far from ambiguous and went well beyond general biblical principle. The letters, essays, ads, tweets, and interviews took an explicitly activist tone, demanding action on specific policies from specific political actors.
What can their disinterest now suggest but all that effort on behalf of “welcoming the stranger” was less about Christian conviction and more about political posturing designed to win the affection of the progressive media and other left-leaning demographics?
Scripture has much to say about leaders who strive to appear righteous before men and show partiality to those whose favor they would like to have. It has much to say on those who use unequal weights and measures. None of it befits those who claim the title pastor or Bible teacher.
Christianity Today editor Ed Stetzer has at least mentioned Cuba since the freedom marches began, saying, “Cubans are protesting against their tyrannical government … Communism always leads to great suffering… Pray for Cuba.”
What Stetzer didn’t mention in his brief tweet — the Biden administration or any of its policies regarding Cuba. Nor did he condemn the Department of Homeland Security’s announcement that any Cubans who try to reach the U.S. by sea will be turned back. Indeed, Stetzer has so far failed to criticize Biden’s approach to refugees at all, whether directly or obliquely, in his terse acknowledgment of the protests.
What a stark contrast his short, general post is to a lengthy 2017 0p-ed he wrote for the Washington Post in which he addressed called out President Trump by name, lamenting, “As an American citizen, I cannot change the Executive Order. But as a Christian and kingdom citizen, I cannot cheer for it, and I cannot stay silent. It is time to pray for those who are hurting, and to plead with our leaders to change course.”
Its also a far cry from a 2018 essay he wrote for Vox in which he claimed, “President Donald Trump is trying to fool evangelicals like me” and insisted “far too many white evangelicals are motivated by racial anxiety and xenophobia.”
Stetzer finished that piece by asking, “How could we have seen the suffering, heard the cries of anguish, and done so little?”
Apparently, that’s only a question for Republican administrations.
UFC’s Jorge Masvidal Slams ‘Coward’ Colin Kaepernick for Wearing Fidel Castro T-Shirt
Quote:UFC fighter Jorge Masvidal took a swing at former NFL player and anthem protester Colin Kaepernick for parading around in a Fidel Castro t-shirt while claiming to protest oppression.
In a July 12 tweet, the Cuban-American UFC fighter slammed Kaepernick for his hypocrisy even as protests rise against the communist regime in Cuba.
“My father escaped Cuba when he was 14 years old,” Masvidal said in the video attached to his tweet. “And I’ve only heard the horror stories since I could process thoughts of how ****** this communist regime, killing machine is. So, I just want to shed some light on Cuba — big SOS signal for them.”
“This oppression has been going on for 61 years,” Masvidal continued. “This is not just because of the pandemic, or it’s not just because they ran out of medicine — they’ve been out of medicine and they’ve been out of resources and food because of the corrupt government and the extreme corruption over there where only a few at the top eat and everyone has to suffer. Those days have to end.”
Later, in an Instagram post, Madvidal recalled how Colin Kaepernick wore a t-shirt praising Cuba’s communist dictator, Fidel Castro, and added that “cowards” like Kaepernick should be sent to live in Cuba so they can experience real oppression.
Masvidal is, of course, referring to the time in 2016 when Kaepernick wore a t-shirt praising Castro at a San Francisco 49ers press conference:
At the time, Kaepernick praised Cuba for its education and health care systems and even claimed that the island nation’s educational system was so good because Castro spent more money on schools than on prisons.
Kaepernick’s claim that Castro did not imprison his people rings hollow, though. One report in 2012 found that Cuba had the sixth-highest rate of imprisoning its people per capita in the world, and many of those behind bars were political prisoners placed there for openly defying the communist regime.
Back in 2016, Kaepernick also showed that he was not just protesting the few police misbehaving when he wore socks that portrayed all police officers as pigs. Kaepernick also said that the U.S. was never great, noting that he was standing up against the whole country in general, not just supporting “social justice” with his anthem protests.
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